


Past and Present

by Enigel



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-24
Updated: 2006-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/pseuds/Enigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No strings attached was in itself a very attaching situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past and Present

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fluffyllama in the Numb3rs_Newyear 2006 ficathon.

Don sees the way Coop and Charlie are eyeing each other. Billy's playful offensive, which is just his way of testing the new people he meets, Charlie's cautious defensive, more protective of the math than of himself. Same way he'd first looked at Edgerton, at Kim. People from his past that Charlie had known nothing about, because Don had denied him that knowledge. Don had always tried to keep his worlds separate. He's been fair, he thinks with dry amusement, he hadn't told Billy too much about his brother either.

Don sees the way his father looks at Billy ("Those weren't good times for me"). Billy was a whirlwind that pulled Don away from what Alan saw as his ideal future, the whole daughter-in-law and grandchildren picture. Billy dragged him away from his family, without offering a family in its stead, and Alan didn't see Don fighting for a balance.

Don sees the way Billy looks at him, and remembers.

* * *

Cooper grinned broadly at him, looking really relaxed for the first time that week, and it had only _been_ a week they'd known each other.

It was Don's first case in Fugitive Recovery, and he'd already climbed more fences than he could imagine a small town having, run up a steep hillside in a blistering heat, with gun fire over his head, and spent five nights in a row sleeping in a car.

But the case was solved, and his partner looked happy and fresh as if the week's tribulations had been an afternoon at the gym, and his grin was contagious.

"Come on, partner, we've gotta celebrate."

Not a question, and Cooper was already heading in the supposed direction of a bar.

"What, are you kidding? I'm going to lie down here in the grass if I don't get somewhere with decent beds any time soon. And by decent I mean 'not a car seat'."

"No way, man, what we need now is beer."

"I... I should go home, they haven't heard from me in days."

"Call them to say you're fine, and _then_ we can have a beer." Cooper's rough, low voice had a hypnotising power of conviction. "One more day won't make a difference."

"As long as we sit somewhere nice."

Cooper smirked.

"Where by 'nice' I mean where we won't get into a bar brawl. I'd hate to be put to shame by some local drunk, 'cause I couldn't punch my way out of a pillow fight right now."

They both knew that if they had to, if there was an emergency, they'd both shake the exhaustion off and kick any ass that needed kicking. Cooper laughed.

"Okay, no bar brawls. Better yet, Eppes. No bars, just you and me and a six-pack of the finest beer you can find here."

After a well-calculated pause, he added: "Where by fine I mean cold."

Don laughed, said "Okay," and that was how it all started.

* * *

Long days often turned into weeks, and only sometimes it felt easy to call and let his father know he wouldn't be coming home yet. Most of the times it was easier to not call at all. The easiest was when he _couldn't_ call - too risky, no signal, too late, no time.

And then there was that night.

When that night happened, he was not surprised. It seemed a natural progression from all their "just you and me and the bottle, Eppes" nights, through "just the two of us and the beer, Don". The beer might have helped, but Don doubted it mattered much in the grand scheme of things. It had always been just the two of them.

Nothing could keep him away from Coop since that night.

* * *

Don saw the way his father looked at Coop then ("Oh, so... you're Don's hunting partner") and he sees how he looks at him now ("Those weren't good times for you"), but he's surprised seeing Charlie mirror that expression.

Charlie couldn't have known about those times. His numbers couldn't tell him about the long days and longer nights, about the shifting world of highways and cars and badly lit, worse smelling back alleys, a world whose gravity center followed the sinuous path of some scumbag that had to be put back in jail, a world whose only stable point was your partner.

It was that world that stopped him from going home each evening, because fugitive recovery isn't a 9 to 5 job, and it was that world that prevented him from going home even after a case was solved. The rush and the excitement of the chase made him wild and sometimes unspeakably tired, and Billy was there for it all and he didn't need or offer words, just strong arms and warm lips and hot breath on his skin. No strings attached was in itself a very attaching situation.

* * *

Billy's low voice rumbles in his ear and takes him back to those days in a moment of sudden, intense nostalgia, and it's all he can do to keep an even face in front of Charlie's questioning gaze. _Hey, Eppes. What do you say about you and me and one for the road?_ A pause, a chuckle, then: _A beer, I mean. What did you think I was offering?_

Don knows exactly what Coop is offering. Don needs a balance, and balance means putting something on the other plate too once in a while. So Don lies with unexpected ease, lies and leaves Charlie and dad with their chess table and their disappointment. Family first, but somewhere there has to be a place for a dusty motel on the road to Phoenix.


End file.
